Risky dancing and consent practices: Addressing identity, privilege and power in contact improvisation

Like many western dance and somatic practices, contact improvisation (CI) has long centred a concept of ‘the body’ that ignores culture, identity, privilege and power. However, for many dancers, identity-based power dynamics do affect how they interact, what risks CI poses to them and how accessible the practice is. This article examines consent practices as one response to identity-based risks in CI. It determines that, to most effectively limit the effects of identity-based power dynamics, the responsibility for consent practices must be shared amongst dancers of all levels of privilege in a CI space. Such distributed consent practices have the potential to address power differences without reifying them, as they allow dancers to modulate risk without naming specific identities. Although increasing consent practices in CI poses a number of challenges, this investigation indicates future potential for consent practice as a strategy to acknowledge and address identity in CI.